As the Hawks’ general manager, Gearon completed trades for Tom McMillen and Terry Furlow and signed Dan Roundfield as a free agent. The Hawks made the playoffs in both of Gearon’s two seasons as GM. He was team president in the 1980s when the Hawks fired Hubie Brown as coach and when they hired first Kevin Loughery and then Mike Fratello as coach. Gearon was followed, first as the Hawks’ general manager and later as team president, by Stan Kasten. When Kasten became president, Gearon became chairman of the Hawks’ board of directors, an advisory and ceremonial position that he held until 2004, at which point his long association with the team entered a new chapter.